00:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
On this week's episode of Circles Off. We're doing another Q&A episode. We got tons of questions in from Twitter, twitter DMs, from our YouTube channel as well. We're going to focus on all of these topics that came in. Some are sports betting related, some are actually very personal questions for myself and Johnny. This week we're getting to all of it. All that and more. This week's Circles Off starts now. Come on, let's go. Welcome to Circles off, episode number 102, right here on the hammer betting network and the circles off youtube channel. Rob pazola joined by johnny from bet stamp. What's going on? Good afternoon, rob. It's a nice uh bet stamp hoodie there a purple question edition yeah, beautiful bet stamp hoodie, here's good colors. 

00:43 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Um rob 102, we got a bunch of numbers, tons of number only number twos, though number twos, no number 102. Looking at my notes, here we have an absolute legend. This guy didn't get enough credit in the nhl was, some say, responsible for multiple cups. Duncan keith, those years. Man, what a legend. Number two was a big uh d-man number in the nhl. Some say responsible for multiple cups. Duncan Keith. Duncan Keith, those years man, what a legend. 

01:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Number two was a big D-man number in the NHL. Al McInnes hard slapper, always used to win those. If there was betting back in the day on the NHL I mean there was, but like not to the same extent that we have on the NHL skills competitions Al McInnes, hardest shot every year, should have been priced at minus 1 million. Al McInnes yeah, he would be. Literally. Unless he died on the ice, he was going to get the hardest shot Current and former Maple Leaf Luke Shen Yep. 

01:35
Brian Leach, big number two defenseman, also very underrated player from the NFL, mason Crosby. 

01:45 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't know if he's that underrated. He's had a job for all those years, so he's good, mason. 

01:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Crosby, he's lost his leg now, right? If you're a kicker now and you're struggling with the 50-yarders, it's time to hang it up. 

01:57 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, no, he's good at well. Actually, you know what he did have a couple of poor seasons as well. I don't know how I feel about mason crosby. In my opinion, on kickers, you have to either be able to make it every single time inside 45 or you have to have the ability to hit from 60 65. I'm with you. Other than those two, you can't be in no man's land. You have to be able to actually hit it from 65 because then you can like, end of the half, your team could take the shots and stuff. 

02:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
You know, at least if you have the leg yeah, if you don't have a leg, you have to be like really, really consistently good inside the shorter distance and, honestly, the teams might as well just roster a second kicker that does have a leg. Anyways, instead of some of those yeah, positions like a special teams player, obviously I'm going to mention derrick cheater, the most overrated baseball player of all time. Don't get mad at me, it's true, it's a fact. That doesn't mean that he wasn't great, but overrated uh, not overrated, kawaii leonard number two two toronto legends, kawaii leonard and troy tulowitzki remember that too low trade, how excited everyone was about, including myself? 

02:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
yeah, of course we all were at least jays are going back to the playoffs this year. 

03:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, they can't wait, there's lots of good number twos lonzo ball lamella, lamelo Ball man. 

03:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
The balls, the big ballers, the two balls. 

03:07 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Big Ball LeBron. 

03:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh, LeVar Ball's the man. That guy, listen, say what you want about LeVar Ball. Was that an entertaining segment when he was like popular for a bit? That was hilarious. 

03:24 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I used to watch this lavar ball show yeah, I will say this. I I gotta give him credit. He listens to the podcast every week. Josh goodwin, that we work with this guy was like hyping up lamello ball when he was in like grade seven, I kid you not. He was like telling all of us like yo, there's this kid in chino hills, he's gonna be, he's there you go. 

03:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Saying grade seven gives you away. As a Canadian, by the way, yeah, I know, seventh grade it's how our folks in the US would say. It Lots of number twos. But we don't deal with the number two sportsbook on this podcast. We deal with the number one sportsbook. That's Pinnacle. They are the world's sharp sportsbook. They're available to bettors in ontario. Find out what pro bettors have known for decades pinnacle is where the best bettors play. You must be 19 plus, not available to those in the us. And, of course, as always, please play responsibly. 

04:16
Cannot preach that enough this week, johnny, another q, a episode. Uh, we didn't get to all the questions that we had last time. This has been about five or six episodes ago now, I think, 95 and 96. We did some Q&A, so we still have some leftovers. We got a bunch of them through Twitter. That's DMs to my account, dms to Circles Off, some Twitter responses also to our YouTube channel. We do post in the community section every single time. We we're going to do a Q&A. Thank you for your input there as well. So we'll get to it. You can lead as you usually do, johnny, and we'll go through these one by one, all right. 

04:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So this one's for Rob here. Rob, how do you balance a social life and relationship with being a pro better? Are you comfortable telling strangers you're a pro better? 

05:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I guess there's been an evolution of this over the years. I don't really ever tell people that I'm a pro. Better, I just say that I'm involved in the betting space. I don't know why I do that. Honestly, it's not like a shameful thing or not wanting people to know. I guess maybe it is a little bit of like trying to avoid all the follow-up questions of like a million things about you know, just betting. Maybe it is a little bit of like trying to avoid all the follow-up questions of like a million things about you know, just betting as it is. But I guess I'm comfortable telling strangers that I mean, I do a podcast where I talk about being a pro. Better, I put myself out there, but for the most part I don't know. 

05:38
It's just really really weird how I handle that in terms of, like the balancing of social life and relationship. I think, like the most important thing is to just be upfront with the people around you in terms of like what your everybody works right. Like well, not everybody, but if you work, you're accustomed to some sort of working schedule, whether that's a nine to five, five days a week or four days a week or whatever your shift might be. I think you just got to keep that transparency with everyone around you. So if you're married and you're going to be betting on an NFL Sunday, live trading an NFL Sunday, your partner needs to know that you're unavailable every Sunday because that's part of your job. But you can't overdo it right either. You can't just take 90 hours a week to bet on sports. If you have a partner, if you have kids, some sort of family, so I think, like, how do you balance a social life and relationship with being a pro? Better, it's understanding that you need to maintain a balance is the best advice that I could give. 

06:40
So for me, my wife Diana, she knows, during football season, sundays off limits. Monday nights, I'm watching the game. Thursday nights I'm watching the game and if I'm going to find time to do things, we know when that is going to be. And that applies to Diana, it applies to my family. Like my parents are going to do a get together for lunch. They know they're not going to invite me over on a Sunday during NFL season because they know that that is going to cut into my work essentially, and this is work for me. So I think it's just being transparent with all those around you, uh, but also understanding that you do need to find a balance. Like you know, if you're a family person, you have relationships. You can't neglect people either. You need to treat them Um, not, I don't want to say like treat them like they're a job as well, but you have to give them the time of day. 

07:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Good answer, good answer. I don't really have much to add to that. I'm not a pro bettor, so my full-time job, as you guys know, is a run bet stamp here. So it's easier for me to just mention I work in the sports betting space. I will say so. It has nothing to do with me, but I can only imagine how frustrating it is telling somebody that you are a better and like, but no like, because how do you explain it? You're like oh, I'm super serious about it, though like no, I, I actually win. 

07:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
And they're like yeah, sure you do, buddy, like you, you win a lot well, this is going to sound very arrogant for me, but it's like the same for me as well, right, like if I tell people I'm a pro, better they're like oh yeah, like I just won a bunch of parlays last week or whatever. It's like I don't really want to hear that. Like I don't want to have the conversation with a person about why what they're doing is not going to win in the long run and get like, get into that debate. So like for me, I basically lead the conversations with like I'm involved in the betting space. I co-own a couple of companies in the betting space. 

08:21
If people want to ask about the hammer or ask about bet stamp, then like I'm more than happy to respond. But the reality is like over the course of the years, I spend way less time betting than I ever really have, or at least over the course of the last 10 years, I'm way more involved in the hammer on a day to day. Now we still record, you know I I still talk to Johnny about bet stamp pretty regularly as well. So it's, while I make the majority of my income from betting, I don't spend the most, most of my time betting. So I don't know that I resonate as much as a pro better anymore, so to speak. 

08:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, fair enough In terms of the uh, the companies and stuff like that. That's at least an easier way to explain to people kind of what you do, as opposed to just saying like, yeah, I bet, because the one thing I usually get a lot is like, oh you, you're in sports betting like what picks you got for tonight, and it's like that's not, it doesn't work like that. I'll even have people like give me their phone logged into like you know a betting account and be like what do you wish I bet today? Like who do you got? I'm like, ah, that doesn't, I don know, it doesn't work like that. And then they just think you lose credibility as well, like, ah, this guy doesn't actually bet, but it's the opposite. 

09:27 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
That's the number one follow-up question. When you tell someone that you bet on sports for a living, it's either what do I bet tonight, or can you just bet for me so that I can make money. How many times I've got that question? 

09:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
before question have people ever asked you like oh, what if I invest in you and you just make money for me? Yeah, well, what if? 

09:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I just give you a thousand bucks, like, and you just add it to your bets, I'm like I'm not gonna do. That doesn't work. This does not work like that yeah, so, uh, fair enough. 

09:53 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So next question here um, I'm for rob here. I'm skipping ahead a few, I'm gonna I'm gonna go back and forth try to merge the order for the pleasure of the listeners here. This one's from Twitter. Rob, this actually wasn't addressed to you. Have you had full seasons of materially positive CLV but a significantly negative ROI? What would you look for when reviewing and diagnosing potential leaks in those cases, or is it most likely variants? 

10:21 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So the answer is yes. So I talked about this in the last Q&A we did. I got a question about why I no longer bet on baseball. The last season I bet on baseball, I had a positive CLV and a negative ROI. I had a hockey season where I had a positive CLV and a negative ROI as well. That one the second one was much different than the first one. 

10:41
Baseball market is much more competitive, or at least was so at the time. The hockey market was essentially people that were betting my numbers. So I didn't even know if the CLV meant anything, so to speak, because if there was like any one fading or playing against my numbers, the people moving for me would just hit it it back. So like it's really hard to diagnose in that case. Um, it depends, you know, on the volume. I would say for sure, if you're determining whether it's variance or not like if you're betting a play a day over the course of the season, it's much more and you're getting good clv but you're losing it's much more likely to be variance. If you're playing half the board and you're getting good CLV, the likelihood that its variance is going to decrease and decrease as it goes forward. These are always challenging. The question says what do you look for when reviewing or diagnosing potential leaks? 

11:39
I've talked about this before as well. I'm a big believer in CLV efficient market hypothesis. I buy into all of that for the most part, at least for major markets. But I always try to attach myself to a secondary metric as well for different sports. So I'll use a hockey example, I'll use a football example. 

11:56
But expected goals, expected points in football or hockey, that will also give you an indicator of whether or not you're getting lucky or unlucky. So I like to see am I getting lucky or unlucky from a betting market point of view, using closing line value and then a secondary metric which is easy for a lot of sports to figure out, to determine, like whether or not the plays deserved to win, so to speak, from an actual on the field play type of perspective. So that's kind of my process. There's many, many different ways to approach it, but I felt that personally, having a secondary metric to say that you're getting unlucky helps you through those periods where you're getting good numbers and losing and you know there there might be another reason as to why, and sometimes it's just luck yeah, I uh. 

12:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So basically you're saying you're introducing a few extra variables just to decide. So the start of the question. I actually haven't had this happen to me, so can't really explain exactly what I would do. Um, you know from historicals, but what I can is there's just no reason to think that, unless unless you are truly an originator who has a move or move in the whole market, there's no reason to think that if you obtain a lot of CLV, you're not going to obtain a high ROI. I also have a few smart people around me who are much better at math who would actually be able to. 

13:22
I have had scenarios where I've asked them to like crunch some numbers for me and just see, like okay, what is the actual likelihood, like what is the percentage chance that I would have lost given this? And sometimes it's actually a lot higher than you think. So you might think, like no way, I'm down after the last month and a half getting these numbers and I'm down. And then you'll run a sim and realize like ah, it was actually an 11 chance that I'm down this amount or more. And um, once you, once you kind of realize that like variance over a small enough sample size is actually. There's a chance now it doesn't likely happen. It's always going to be there. There's always gonna be even like a one or two percent chance that you could lose it all. The main issue is people will see that and then be like, well, no, I'm actually good. But we're talking here in a scenario where you are beating the closing line, all the indicators are positive, and then is it variance? Yes, unlikely, but it still could be. 

14:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This wasn't asked in the question, but I find a lot of times people don't know exactly how to track closing line value. Say that, I mean getting half a percent of closing line value over a thousand plays is very different than getting three and a half percent of closing line value over a thousand plays, right? People think that just because they beat the line that they're going to win. If you play minus 115 and it closes minus 118, you know, in the long run that's much more coin flipping than if you play minus 115, it closes minus 130 or minus 135. 

14:49
So I think a lot of these questions and, by the way, I'm not accusing just final nub that sent this in on Twitter. I'm not saying this for him specifically but I get tons of questions about my closing line value is this and in some cases it's not people saying what their actual closing line value is. They'll be like oh, I beat the line in like 37 of the last 52 games I played, but I've lost. It's like okay, how much did you beat the line by? Like that, that is your. That is much more important than just the percentage of times you beat the closing line. 

15:23 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Oh yeah, and were you beating it by a larger amount when you beat it, versus when you lost to it by a larger amount, exactly. So, anyways, moving forward on this one, this one is something that actually is interesting because it's different for everyone. Not sure if you've answered this, but curious. When you take profits on your bets, slash accounts, do you set a number or figure or sorry? Do you set a number or figure or sorry? Do you set a number or figure out after the sports season example, after the super bowl. 

15:50 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Um, this I'm not the best to answer this because of the style in which I bet. So again, I'll make it known that probably 90 of the bets that I have are not placed by myself. Uh, what, like? What I mean is I essentially send them and someone is betting them out for me. But I do have a ton of different Ontario accounts and I will say it's honestly like it's very random. 

16:14
I don't set times for, like I'm going to withdraw x amount or if I reach this amount of bankroll, I'm going to pull stuff out. I don't do that personally because I'm not heavily reliant on that money and I'd rather just be in the account so that I can bet it if I need to. Sportsbook limits me. I'm going to pull the vast majority of the money out of there. I might still take some shots on some big parlays on that book at lower limits, but my money's coming out. 

16:38
In terms of seasonality, that's usually how it goes right. Like I'm predominantly a football and hockey better, so I'm going to pull a lot of money out of accounts when we're in the off season, like going into the summer. There's no point in just me leaving it there to rot away when I can take that money out and use it, put it into the market, do whatever I want to do with it. So, um, I don't know that there's a perfect way to answer this, but typically speaking, let's say, going back 10 years, let's say even six or seven years, when I was building a bankroll, I would set targets for myself, essentially, and say, like once I reach this, I will withdraw X amount. Once I reach this, I will withdraw Y amount. I don't know that's the right way to go about it, but at some point you actually have to realize the money as well. Like if it's just in your accounts forever, you know you're, you're not capitalizing on it at all. 

17:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah. So for post-up, the way I think you have to do it when you have a bankroll that is not necessarily unlimited which for the most part, the way I consider an unlimited bankroll is if you don't have to bankroll manage because the amount that you can get down in stake is lower than what your Kelly would be. So, for example, if you've got, you know, if your max bet based on Kelly is $11,000, but you're tapped out at all your sports books, the most you can bet is $3,000. And effectively you're just max betting everything. So what I would do there and the way you have to do it is, you know, if that's the case, you can just withdraw your money and then realize kind of like, okay, I usually have this many on average plays, let me assign myself a little buffer, and you know I can withdraw this and still, you know, not lose any plays because I don't have money in the account. But when you're just starting you really need to optimize bankroll management. So if you only have, like you know, let's say, 3000 bucks, you're trying to Kelly stake, that's your bankroll across all your sports books. You need to be in and out ASAP, making sure that, like, hey, if I have a play that's available at this book and I don't have money in it that just costs me this amount. 

18:32
So you really need to key in on, like, what sports books you have that are giving you the most plays per week, which sports books you have that maybe you don't use as much and in at times it even could be optimal to just carry a zero balance in two or three sports books, even if that book may have the best line. You're going to try and I'm saying very short period to like just grow that bankroll to the point where you can start using all of them. But in in the short term, like you know, you might spread your book, your bankroll, across five books as opposed to ten, in order to make sure that you're able to play. And the other thing I would say is, if your bankroll is small, you want to reduce your variance and increase your bankroll total growth size. Over the long run, what you're really going to want to do is actually make sure that you are betting smaller so even smaller than Kelly staking and getting a wider variety of plays across multiple books. So it's better to have 300 plays in the week across all your books, assuming they're plus EV Assuming they're plus EV, I'm saying but let's say you can play 300 plays at $1 each. 

19:35
I'd rather do that than play six plays at $50 each, because that's going to overall again assuming they're plus EV reduce the variance and then increase your bankroll at a better thing and also reduce your risk of ruin. All right, next up, rob, this one's a fun one. How do you guys watch sports? Are you always looking for different ways to view the game that could possibly uncover a future edge? Are you just simply enjoying yourself watching the sport, or is it a combination of both? 

20:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Good question from Webhead Jack. I guess I consume sports in a different manner because I bet on it, so there is always some sort of betting lens to everything I do. It's. I can't just watch a game anymore without thinking of some sort of betting application. It's kind of just the way I'm wired. It's been 20 years of my life that I've been betting on sports more than 50% of my life. 

20:32
So when I'm watching I am always looking for stuff like that, and I've made this known on this podcast before. 

20:40
But, as weird as it sounds like during a football season I have a notebook of stuff. While I'm watching games I will write down stuff that I notice and then I kind of review it on a monthly basis and see how many times I've been writing it down or things that I've noticed, because there's like little things I always want to investigate. League-wide shifts in flags I can look at like you can get that from data, but you very quickly notice it. While watching games as well, I'm noticing they're calling a lot more offensive holding penalties. Let me actually look into this, see how I can incorporate that stuff like that. So I don't necessarily think that like I'm looking for different ways to uncover a future edge. As much as it's just like like the way that I'm wired Comes natural. Yeah, it's like how I'm trying to imagine how, like just a regular fan this is sad, by the way Just like a fan of a team watches a game, like what? 

21:38
That's like you when you watch a Leaf game. But even then, sometimes I'm like how many Leaf games have I bet on this year? Probably 60 of the 82-plus playoffs. 

21:46
Yeah betting against the Leafs or on in some capacity. But like everything, it just changes the way you consume sports. So I simply am like do you enjoy? Are you simply enjoying yourself watching the sport? I'd say that there's like the wheels are always going off in my head while I'm watching the sport. So that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it I am. But there's constantly like some sort of betting application that I'm trying to think of. 

22:20 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So for me, I don't really sweat bets Like I don't watch the game and be like, oh, these are all my bets, I gotta like get this, I gotta get this occasionally listen for fun, it is nice to see and like it is, but it doesn't like consume or affect. I don't like make sure I have to watch every game and honestly, I don't really check the score as much at all. When I'm like you know, let's say I'm at home or at dinner or something I don't, I I don't like check my phone and like check all the scores. When I do actually watch the games, typically I'm like doing something else as well. So I might be like responding to some emails or doing something else or just like texting or maybe like out watching with some friends or something like that. So I'm never like watching so intently. 

22:57
It kind of has ruined as a sports fan for me, because I used to love watching like Maple Leafs games and now I don't really watch them anymore. Or, like you know, I'll have them on in the background. And don't get me wrong, if you asked me the day after the Leaf game did the Leafs win or lose? Like I'm telling you the game and I'll tell you if they won or lost and what the score was. But I didn't actually like guaranteed watch that full game anymore. In terms of like looking for angles, I will say it's. I did think that it was a lot easier to look for an angle before. Now I'm a little more I guess I'm a little less bullish on like whether or not you can find an angle from watching the game was there like a specific experience that led you well, I just kind of realized that, like, almost all of the things you look for on the tv are nonsense, like they're. 

23:44
They're highly likely that they might be something, but it's like not enough to actually materially find you an edge that you can use. So that's where I'm kind of like you know the dude, is it really worth it? Like you can find stuff that's not factored into the line, but what are the chances that that thing that you found and this is a change of what I even said on this podcast before it's very hard to find a thing that impacts the line enough for you to be able to bet it and make money off that. That's where I've now shifted to. 

24:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So the one thing I would say from modeling sports is that seasonality matters, right. So over the course of the season I'll use hockey as an example I'm sorry, I always use hockey, but I'm very familiar with betting hockey there will be points in the year where there's more penalties called or that there's more scoring, and that will fluctuate. And if you were to plot the graphs of that on an annual basis, you would get the same trend pretty similarly, but sometimes it takes a little bit longer for it to happen, Sometimes it happens a little bit shorter. So I think one advantage that I get from watching actual hockey games is if I watch a lot of games over the course of the week, it's very easy for me to spot that change in a league-wide dynamic that my model will eventually catch. But it might just be happening quicker. Like same thing with baseball right. Sometimes in the first month of the year you get absurd scoring or much lower scoring, and there will be a point where that changes inevitably. Usually not always, but if you're frequently watching these games you would be able to pick up on that. 

25:22
I used to like crap on, like the subjective handicappers right, and like think that the modeling was the be all and end all, and I'm still a very big proponent of modeling, coming up with your probability on the game. But I do think that there are subjective handicappers out there that are really good at what they do. Look at Suma for NFL as an example. Right, Suma is going to create a number on the game, but it's going to be very different than how a lot of other people create a number on a game, which is just running some sort of algorithm. He's basically running that algorithm in his head and he's doing it better than 99% of the people out there even more than that. So, yeah, I am enjoying myself watching the sport, but there's always a part of me that's like hmm, maybe this is something, maybe I need to look into it, Maybe investigate that, Maybe it's nothing, Probably nine times out of 10, it's actually nothing to your point, I guess. 

26:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Maybe is what you're arguing, but uh, well, I'm just saying like nine times out of 10, it's nothing. I don't even mean nine times out of 10, it's nothing. Nine times out of 10, it's something. But that something is not enough to actually like move the line by enough of a percentage that it's now worth a bet. 

26:30 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Well, a great example of that is I have people all the time message me like this player just left a hockey game, like we're going to live bet the other side. I'm like no, like that's not enough. Take that player out of the lineup. 

26:50 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's that take that player out of the lineup. It's like 0.3 percent difference. It's not going to overcome minus 120 on both sides on this live line. Like exactly that's. That's pretty much exactly. What I mean is like, okay, this team lost their kicker for the rest of the game and he's out great, that is enough to actually bet it. This team lost their punter for the rest of the game. Do I bet that? Like, yes, they would love to have their punter. It will impact the game. How much time is left? How many times are they even going to punt? Do they now make better decisions on fourth down and go for it which have a higher expected value? Like what's going to happen? 

27:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
you don't know you have to be able to process that information in real time because, like some teams, I would tell you right now, some teams losing their kicker would be a benefit kicker, or punter kicker, because they can no longer kick that field goal coach, who's typically very conservative, would now have to opt to go for it more often, which is a little bit more plus ev for some of the teams. So it's not only about identifying, but then you have to like process it in real time. How many people are capable of doing? I'm not even sure that I'm capable of doing that, to be completely honest with you. So, um, but yeah, it's, yeah, it's definitely a different. Like you know, if they hooked up, like the brain sensors you know, you ever see, like the wave charts of, like what's going on during the game. I bet you what I like when my chart is spiking would be very different from when, just like, a person who never bets on sports is spiking. 

27:59 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough, fair enough, all right. Next question uh, at shared underscore sw best resource for building betting models. For a more technically advanced audience beyond hey, there's an excel power ranking. 

28:10 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I copied off this guy's youtube video any pods, books, articles, etc yeah, so like I got nothing there, so yeah, I learned everything I knew through taking stats courses in university and reading. That's it. And honestly, the youtube videos are helpful. There's still stuff that I don't know how to do when it comes to like some Excel macros, and you know, I started learning Python again a couple of years ago. The YouTube videos are helpful, but for me, at the end of the day, the most important thing is to have some knowledge, some base of stats, and most people like skip that part completely. 

28:48
They think, oh, I understand sports, I'm just going to go build a model. You have to have the statistical component, like a broad knowledge of different statistical principles. So for me, take an intro to stats course. You can take free intro to stats courses online. You can read about statistics, you can look at what the curriculum is for, like university or college statistics, and learn the stuff on your own. But I would I would rather trust somebody who's very proficient in stats that knows nothing about sports to build a model for me than the opposite. So that's where my starting point. I'm sorry I don't have great resources, but like, I quite literally learned everything I knew through just Googling what I wanted to to find. 

29:33 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
All right, buddy, you're going to have to DM Rob and see if he can actually send you some real stuff. Sorry for the uh, the lack of any. True, you didn't give him a website, you didn't give him an exact place to go, but read in youtube, I guess there's a great site it's lemonpartyorg for all your statistical needs okay, well, be sure to check that out all right up next. Um see, actually you know we should ask this one prior but they're gonna. 

30:00 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
They're gonna see like a huge spike on their site. By the way, they're gonna be like where the fuck all these betting betterors coming from this week? 

30:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, do they charge a subscription? I wouldn't know? All right, how about this one? When originating, rob, how much of a discrepancy does there need to be between your line and that of the book to consider a bet worthwhile? 

30:22 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Again, personal question and it's been worded as a personal question Depends on the sport, depends on what you're betting, Typically speaking because of the amount of time. So when I model sports, typically running simulations of games, and depending on how many simulations you run, you're going to have like some level of variance. So just as an example, right, I'll use the Dallas Cowboys. If I run 10,000 simulations on the Dallas Cowboys to win a game, I might get 60%. 

30:53 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Should have woke up earlier. Ran 11,000 Sims. 

30:55 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But if I do run 11,000 Sims or 10,000 Sims again, I might get a vastly different. I might get 61.4%. So I know what the threshold is. Now I run more Sims than that, but typically there's like a variance of up to half a percent. I like to have like at least a 1% edge on everything I bet. So I'm looking for a one and a half percent difference between my line and the books line before I'll bet it. And that's in the cases where I'm extremely confident in my model and there's cases where I'm less confident in my model and there's cases where I'm less confident. I'll be looking for a larger margin. So to each their own. This is not a right or wrong answer. Some people, like they trust their numbers as gospel. They'll bet any edge they have. That's not me. I want to overcome the variance in the model itself, uh, in the simulations, and also like making sure I always have that one percent leeway bernard underscore bbm, which is the same same guy who asked the question prior. 

31:55 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's not bernard bernad, bernad underscore bbm. When sportsbooks post opening lines, do they use their models or they just put out a number without doing much modeling? So in order to get to this one, we're going to have to refer you back to a previous episode of Circles Off. We had on one of the we'll call it risk room guys over at. 

32:17
Circa Sports in Nevada. He goes by the name Chris Bennett. That is his actual name and it's like he goes by the name of. He was on this podcast. Maybe we can link that back in the description after zach. 

32:31
But the what he said to give you a brief overview, is that a lot of times it's overblown how much goes into the opening number. There's such small limits that's very hard for the sports book to actually get beat up and therefore they don't allocate as much time and resources as they do mid-game trading and mid-day trading. So basically what he said is you'll take a quick look around, it will see, kind of like you know what he thinks it should be, and then bam, he'll pop the numbers open at very small limits and then you know those will get shaped into place by the actual bettors. So, to answer your question, from what I know and for what I've been told from multiple bookmakers in, the space doesn't go like. There's not too much modeling in it and ultimately sportsbooks have to be aware that when they've got that minus 10 working for them on either side, they're able to actually price it within, you know, three percent and still not take a complete bath yep, uh, chris bennett was episode number 61 of circles off. 

33:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
if you want to search it really quickly, uh, zach will link it in the description below also, uh, if you go to youtube, it's in our popular videos. 

33:35
It's one of our most highly watched interviews that we've done here on the Circles Off channel. But I agree with Johnny, I don't think that this is like some hugely sophisticated process. This is no disrespect to bookmakers, by the way, but if someone did have the numbers to make an absurdly tight line as the opener, they probably aren't going to be a bookmaker, they probably would just be betting into those markets at some other point. And again, I don't mean that as a disrespect to a lot of people, but I definitely think people really overrate what it takes to set out an opening number on a game Like even if you just use market implied power rankings right, I've talked about a site before called unpredictable um, which has market implied power rankings, basically takes the closing spreads or money lines of a game and puts teams in like an order and ranks them. You, I can have someone, I can have my brother go and make opening lines for a game based off of those. 

34:35 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
that would be fairly accurate and if they're not, it won't cost you that much of course, that's just gonna get bet into place anyways and you're gonna figure it out. 

34:43 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Episode 81 with matthew trenhill from our friends over at pinnacle as well, check that one out all right, so a couple more here. 

34:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Rob, if you could manifest one betting regulation to either appear or disappear, which would it be? 

34:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
okay, obviously, for for us just having posted limits on every market. 

35:04 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You're gonna waste it on that. What about can't? Can't limit any betters? 

35:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I. 

35:08 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, let's talk in a real world also actually, you know what they're always going to be on demand economics, if there was no limit to any betters and those books wouldn't be able to operate Of course, If you could just print them, then there'd be other things. 

35:19 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I absolutely love Pinnacle in Ontario, but even Pinnacle has limits. They just have a much higher limit and they allow you to read that. 

35:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I mean no restricting. 

35:32 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Would? I love that Absolutely. Am I going to be a realist in answering this? Yes, this is a little bit of a cop-out, I guess, because I'll think about it from, like, the more of a recreational player side of things, and this is particular specific to Ontario. Apologies if you meant for me to ask somewhere else, but Ontario has regulations on what sportsbooks can actually advertise. So if you're in the US and you're watching commercials, you'll see tons of these deposit bonus promos and stuff like that Sign up to whatever and get X amount of money or whatever. You can't do that in Ontario. 

36:09
The reason why is regulators seem to think that this is like could cause responsible gaming issues. Let's put it that way. However, every single commercial that you see in Ontario now has to do with same game parlays. It's just like crazy influx of same game parlay commercials. Aaron Paul for Bet365, let me talk to you about same game parlay. You can bet on all these things in a game at once. That's right. That type of stuff is like more damaging. So, honestly, there just needs to be better limits or guidelines on what sports books should and shouldn't be able to advertise, in my opinion. 

36:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough. I guess I didn't even answer mine yet. I would say there's. 

37:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So Like I can go on to deepen this and like I don't want to spend an entire episode on this, but it's very specific to region too right, like I might go to one state, I could go to Ohio, and say like I would change this year, and I guess I'm thinking about it from a regulator perspective rather than from a better perspective. Maybe I'm just very disillusioned from the better perspective, but like no limits. You know that's like this. We don't live in that world. 

37:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
yeah, you know, I honestly I'm not even gonna answer all right up next. Um, speaking of same-game parlays question from YouTube here, pips NBA he's a fellow Hammer creator, the board NBA. I believe they're actually doing some great stuff for the NBA playoffs. What do we got going on? 

37:49 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
We've got some live watch-alongs happening throughout the NBA playoffs. Typically we do game sevens with Jacob and rotation of guests Clive, bixby, pips but yeah, watch-alongs have been a pretty big hit this playoffs. 

37:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We love them. Game seven watch-alongs All right. So Pips, nba has a very good record betting same-game parlays on pick and roll, which is the hammer show. Do you think this is sustainable? I thought SGPs were a sucker's bet. 

38:13 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He's getting good closing line value on the SGP, on the SGP, sgp, clv. So it's kind of like the same thing that you would use to metric, that you would use to evaluate any other bet, but same game parlays. It's the same thing as parlays, right? We did an episode one of the first ever episodes we did on Circles Off was audio only. It's within the first 10 episodes. It was within the first 10 episodes. It was called the Myth About Parlays. 

38:38
I remember this very clearly because there's a lot of educational material out there. That's like parlays are suckers bets. Don't bet parlays. That's not true at all. 

38:47
If you're a losing better, then parlays are generally bad bets for you. When you're a winning better and you can identify what a plus EV bet is, parlays can be very good bets for you. When you're a winning bettor and you can identify what a plus EV bet is, parlays can be very good bets for you. Same game parlays. In the same sense, if you know where a line is going to move or can get out in front of a line move, you can use same game parlays to your advantage. The vast majority of people cannot. Pips is a real good bettor is what it comes down to pips is a real good. Better is what it comes down to. Um has a good knowledge of the market, solid knowledge of the nba, understands basic and more advanced statistical fundamental principles, so I think it's sustainable because he's getting good closing line value on them and typically that's the best indicator of whether or not you're going to win over a longer period of time. 

39:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Fair enough, I think yeah, as Rob mentioned, like the parlay, same-game parlay is a sucker bet typically because a lot of the things priced in there just give you such bad odds. But, if you like, I mean, that's not to say that you can't find a few tidbits in there. Overall, though, most of those like preset same-game parlays like, yeah, you best believe. 

39:57 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Those are a very different story. Like the preset ones, don't even get you started on this, please. 

40:02 - Zack Phillips (Other)
No, yes, the best ones, though, are the ones even Rob's talking about the Ontario commercials where they do same-game parlay within a parlay. 

40:19 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Within a parlay, within a parlay, within a parlay, within a parlay. Yep, well, uh, up next. So you know what? I think I can cut a pretty good one. So, dm, can either of you cut a tiktok sports betting promo right on the spot? I think I can go, I I've. 

40:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I've seen you cut them in a telegram group before. 

40:32 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, so go for it let me see what's on tonight and check some odds here. Uh, while we, while we go through it, can you, you know what? I'll read the next question while rob's answering. I'm gonna think of my promo and then I'll cut it. Uh, you know what? Actually fuck it, I gotta go on the spot right here, all right? 

40:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
yeah, you got it, you got to do it on. Uh, you can't think about it, the just pick. 

40:49 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, I got I got, I got it. 

40:50 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Don't talk about it. Be about it all right. 

40:53 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Tonight, back on the hardwood, we are in denver for game one, lakers versus nuggets. And guess what we have right now? We have the mvp two-time nicola jokic. What is he gonna do? All he does, he keeps doing it triple doubles all day long. You're getting what? Plus 100, double your money. Easy lock of the week, nicola jokich. Triple double. No way he doesn't do it versus lebron easy mvp. And while you're at it, I'll also take the lakers money line, for no apparent reason, even though that contradicts my other play, but it is what it is, that's pretty good. 

41:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't know about the is what it is, uh, so five second I, I on the spot, give me one, rob, give me one uh, okay, I don't watch a lot of tiktok content, but I'll give you one. 

41:39
Okay, I don't know if you've heard, but the mlb had some significant rule changes this year less space between bases, pitch clock. I found a system that is 93 and one this year in major league baseball that involves betting overs specific day of the week, specific time, specific pitcher. Find me on my Patreon. 93 and one. These will cash. I have the inside scoop. 

42:14 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Wow, that I'm buying right, I think. Yeah, that was pretty good, zach, you got to cut. 

42:16 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I'm buying right. Yeah, that was pretty good. 

42:18 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Zach, you got to cut one quick. I think I got one Systems right. 

42:21 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Okay, jays, lose to the Yankees last night. All right, I'm just setting the stage here for you, game two of this series. Bo Bichette more like Flo Bichette 23 degrees outside in Toronto, the domes open, his hair is blowing in the wind, bright lights, big player. Boba shet over 0.5 hits parlay. Alejandro kirk ding dong. Lock of the night. If you don't like free money, I don't know what you're doing. Keep scrolling. Subscribe here. More free locks. 

42:58 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That was really good, that was really good. I like them. I'm a clear third place here, but I did have to go first. 

43:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, I had more time to think about it. You got the inspiration. Oh man, Absolute. We need another TikTok episode soon, man. 

43:13 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Some of those are too good people dming me like different people like me, personally being like send me that kids tiktok, I've seen, uh, I've seen hashtag tic tiktoks that trigger us on twitter really, yeah. 

43:25 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So I think people, I think we can get it going I don't know if I want to some of them really like zach, like the jeep guy why are you still living at your parents house? 

43:34 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
why are you still in the basement watching games? You should be in cuba. You should be driving around in a nice, brand new jeep rubicon like me. Look right here. Look at this. Look at the license plate. Just got a fresh, fresh cover on my car. It's wrapped, now red, but tonight we're going all green. 

43:52 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Discord link below you're taking a girl out tonight. You're wasting time and wasting money because I'm taking her out next. 

44:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Oh man, that was a good one all right, all right I don't want to give the way, give away the names of the people that dm'd, but that was a good one. I'll thank him or her afterwards because, yeah, sometimes they send private dms like they don't want to be ashamed about the questions they're asking. So that's fine. 

44:18 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So this one transitions pretty smoothly. I see Raheem Palmer getting roasted for using astrological signs to pick games. I know it looks crazy on the surface, but is it really that ridiculous? Sagittarius, maybe thinking outside the box is actually a good thing. 

44:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
All right, go ahead, rob well, I I agree with the last sentence. Sometimes thinking outside the box is a good thing. There's there's points where you go to an extreme, though um, I saw this this week. I don't really comment on it or react to it. I want to pick and choose my words carefully here, because I think there is something in sports to finding edges that like. 

45:05 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I'm not even letting you say that, but it's obviously complete bullshit. 

45:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, I agree. Years ago there used to be a guy that went by Sawyer on Twitter. I think he's still around. He builds bots for people or something like that. 

45:19
You know I had some dealings with him which didn't end too great for me, but I know that he swore on like, oh fuck, it wasn't like circadian rhythms or something like that, but it was something that he wanted me to build out a model for him based off of some of it could have been astrological signs there could have been more to it for the pitchers of every baseball game and he really swore by it. And to the point where I was like I don't know much about this stuff, I'm gonna look into it. And then quickly looked into it for about a couple of days and dismissed it as any sort of viable piece of tool for handicapping. I don't hate like the idea of doing stuff like this, but I obviously believe that this is this is bad Like. I obviously do not believe using astrological signs to pick games is going to help you, but that's because I don't believe that astrological signs have any significance to anything whatsoever. No, shit. 

46:23 - Zack Phillips (Other)
No shit, you wouldn't build your team based off of this, johnny, that you're not reconstructing the Leafs now that season's over off of this. 

46:33 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I won't even be able to say how little this is obviously valid, like there's no words that I can put into this microphone right now that would even explain how much of a farce this is and how this should never be factored into anything ever and should never be talked about ever again in life. 

46:50 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I don't know man Matthews and Marner astrological signs. 

46:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't know if they're fully compatible About three or four years ago, there was like this numerology movement in the sports betting like Twitter community, tweety Dimes. Tweety Dimes was one of them. He got he like in fairness to Tweety, I think like he hooked up with the wrong guy and that guy stole his original Twitter account and rebranded it as like numerology pics or something like that. But yeah, I think, generally speaking, if you're a better, you do want to try to account for things that other people might not be accounting for, but but but they actually must have a real, tangible impact on the game. I'm always looking for new data in the sports that I bet on that I can incorporate before other people can. That, to me, is a definition of finding an edge. Again, though, I don't think the astrological signs you know, like it's not, it's nothing, it's literally nothing. 

48:00
You know, back in the day when, like, people started betting UFC, or when I first started betting UFC, this was the market was very primitive at this time. Right, it's not like the UFC market nowadays more people in tune with it. But you could like bucket fighters into buckets and certain fighters had certain um like styles, had matchup advantages over other styles. Like wrestlers used to win a lot back in the day because they used to take people down. They still do, but nowadays the fighters are let's say, they're like more well-rounded. 

48:30
Yeah, there's no one who's just a wrestler exactly. And it was very different at the beginning of the ufc, where certain styles always um, not always, but like you had a, you had an edge just handicapping ufc fights. Based off of that, do you think that if you threw astrological signs into buckets, what certain ones have edges? I? 

48:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
think people would see fictitious trends and would actually bet those and lose money. I agree with you, but up next because I'm so sick of this. That was something else on Twitter this week. That is hilarious. 

49:07 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But did you know I'll cut a TikTok promo with this stuff. The last 17 MLB pitchers on the mound that have been Leos 16-1 with a 1.78 ERA, leos bet them at any price when they're on the mound in the month of May. This is a trend going back 17 seasons. Universe is aligning all these 17s everywhere. 

49:40 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You have to bet leo's in the month of may, only ones who pitchers who are under six feet as well. All right, um, let's see what else we got here. So we're we're more into the personal section here, and then we got a pretty cool scenario at the end where uh that came in through the dms got some good info. Who can throw back the most booze, I guess, out of the three of us? 

50:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
well, it depends like so this there needs to be more nuance to this question, right, like, who can physically do that? 

50:10 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
probably you who can physically drink the most. Yeah, I am. You're the bigger guy, the largest. 

50:14 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, right but like I've you know, I I actually rarely. You drink like coronas, right, and stuff. Like you like the the piss beers, yeah, yeah I I enjoy a nice vodka soda like if we're going out on a regular night. Let's just say this if we, if us three went out on a regular night and we were gonna go and have a good time, I'm probably gonna get to get trashed more than you guys, because I don't really. 

50:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
You get trashed from less beers. 

50:40 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I know I just don't have limits when I'm in situations like that, whereas, like you, might be more responsible or be like. I don't really want to feel like this tomorrow or something like that. 

50:51 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, I haven't gotten crazy drunk in a number of years. 

50:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
This is what I'm saying. 

50:54 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't enjoy it as much as I, since I passed the ripe age of 23. Back in the day, the hangover started hitting pretty bad, and now it's just. It's not fun anymore. 

51:04 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Ever since the last call became a sponsor for BetStamp. The hangover thing for me is Is you're good? I just pound the last call before. Well, I'm not good, but like it helps, it definitely goes from. You know, saturday you drink a lot. Typically speaking, I'd wake up on Sunday Sunday's toast Like the day is a lost day. You have a lost last call the night before. This is a. They don't pay us anything, by the way. I'm just telling you I've had a good experience with this drink. Sunday I wake up mild hangover, pop an Advil. But my day is not lost. I'm good. 

51:45
What's your drink of choice? Because I'm diabetic, obviously. By the way, I hope my endocrinologist is not listening to this segment. He's like I told you no more beers and this and that I try to drink with soda as a mixer. So I do gin and soda and vodka soda a lot because it's more of a diabetic friendly drink. I try to go more white claws now seltzers to to beer, but the reality is I will drink anything who do you think you can out drink rob zach? 

52:11 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
uh, no, because oh, he's sucking up to his boss no size, I don. 

52:16 - Zack Phillips (Other)
I don't think I can. You think you can out-drink Well the thing is like I do drink, probably more frequently in terms of like heavy amounts. How? 

52:24 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
many years you got on him. You better be able to out-drink him. Yeah, fair. 

52:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
It is a good question, man. It really is. 

52:31 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I like answering questions like this this is a good debate we might have to settle it Johnny can throw back the most booze. 

52:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Let's go. Hypothetically, I would be able to drink the most and stay standing out of the three of us, but we're not going to do that. Should we live? 

52:44 - Zack Phillips (Other)
stream a Century Club. Let's do a live stream. Circles off. We'll get, maybe, a sports book to take bets on it. I don't know. If I can't produce that, so we'll have to get someone else in here to do it. That's what we're doing, but I don't do that stuff. 

52:59 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah, you don't. You don't like drinking. I'll go head to head with you. Yeah, you can go ahead and, rob, I'll, I'll produce it. When we first launched the circles off channel, do you remember when we were going to do like a drinking uh interview style format? Do you remember this at all? So I love hot ones. I think it's like one of the best YouTube series. Like you don't have to be a fan of like spicy wings or anything to enjoy it, but the premise is just brilliant, right? It's like take a celebrity, give them 10 wings, all like increasing in spiciness, ask them questions and like you get like real, real answers and like real reaction. And we were gonna do something similar with some sort of like beer drinking thing where we would send them and these aren't celebrities, by the way, they're just like sports bettors I guess some are celebrities and like, if you count Cameo as a celebrity type thing, we should have done that. 

53:50 - Zack Phillips (Other)
We should get a bunch of Hammer people in here, like in the studio. Now that we have a studio, yeah, and we'll do a sit down and have all of us and just have to crush beers or something and watch a game and talk about the game while it's going on and record it and put it out so, like bet, bash happens every year and I can tell you who the people are that get mangled and who the people are that don't. 

54:12 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I don't want to say it on air, I'll respect people's privacy, but you know there's there'll be people that will have to. You know you'll have to walk them back to the hotel afterwards. 

54:21 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Spanky you know, next up from our uh, our friend, our pal g stack george, which one hurts worse losing a close game bet or getting blown out. On one hand, getting blown out Just rips off the band-aid, but it hurts knowing your handicap was way off. The closed game loss is like torture, but could just be bad luck or variance. 

54:43 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Depends If you're watching the game, I would much rather it be a blowout. Personally, I hate investing in watching a whole game and then losing at the wire. I'm miserable. However, there are times where I just check scores and I would rather have lost a close game if I just checked the score afterwards, Because then you kind of feel like, ah, you know, it was. Whatever I got it. You don't like to look at a score and see the baseball team you bet on lost 16-2. 

55:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But it does rip the bandaid off quicker. If you're watching the game, then I agree. Like, yeah, but it does rip the band-aid off quicker. If you're watching the game, then I agree. Yeah, but that depends. Can you like swap over to another game if there's a blowout? 

55:25
because if I'm have to watch a blowout then my bets essentially as soon as it's nine one I have I'm done as soon as it's nine one in a baseball game in the six and I have the team that's down nine one. I'm no longer rooting for that team. I'm looking for another live bet to get an extra. 

55:38 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So no, like, I'll be done with it. So like for me, if I'm going to invest in, I barely watch the games that I bet on. But let's say I am and my team's getting blown out, I'll just turn it off or do something else. Turn on video games, go out, do whatever, and then like the I mean the ultimate dream scenario. One of the best like scenarios for sports bettor is the one where your team is getting blown out. You think you lost and then you log into your account and you see a balance that doesn't make sense and you're like you check the score and you won. Holy shit. Jacksonville Jaguars, la Chargers. Last year Buddy of mine won that one with the jacksonville jags comeback on the money line. Thought it was toast group chatting. Never betting these, these fucks. I think he said again. Never betting these fucks again. This fuckhead lawrence again. Whatever, how many interceptions trevor lawrence have in the first half there, thinks he lost. Next day checks the score. Winner that is a great experience. 

56:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's a great experience. What would be a more devastating defeat to Rob losing an NFL handicapping, head-to-head to Kanish or Simon Hunter? 

56:53 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
oh, this one's easy. People don't, don't, wouldn't think it's. I would be way more devastated if I lost an NFL handicapping competition to Simon Hunter. Yeah, obviously Kanish is a real better like a real winning better. Who like understands the bet, like Kanish is not a guy that thinks that selling picks via an email pick service is running a sports betting syndicate. Like that's embarrassing. I will never, ever in my life, put myself in a position to lose a betting competition to simon hunter. Seems a little scared to me. It will never happen. It's the same reason, of course, I'm scared when you think. You think this is like we. We all know the variance in an NFL season. We all know it Right. This is the same reason I was never going to face Ben the better in a one-week-long picks competition. What do I stand to gain from this? I hate betting competitions in general by the way I'll say this sucked. 

57:57 - Zack Phillips (Other)
After Florida beat Toronto. Who do you think was on panthers? Knish, and I knew it. And then we go to do hit the books on the other day we get in. I'm talking to brad. I'm like brad's laughing, he's like you're gonna hear it and I was like I know, yeah, he gets in. And the first thing oh, how about those panthers? 

58:16 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
baby. I was like did knish also tell you he bet the se, seattle Kraken and the Edmonton Oilers in the second Round, or did he just victory? 

58:23 - Zack Phillips (Other)
lap the Panthers. No, no, he was honest about it. That's what we have here at the Hammer. 

58:28 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I like that so, speaking of the Hammer Question came in. Are you guys as bullish about the Hammer Network as you were when you first started? The sports betting space seems to have gotten super Saturated super quickly. The action Network selling for all that money is trending towards the very unique exception, not the rule. Do you feel as though you still have a unique selling point? 

58:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yes, I do. I mean, I honestly thought there would be more people that copycatted like the whole notion of like building a transparent content brand, pick tracking and stuff like that. No one really has. I kind of understand why, again, I don of understand why, again, I don't know why, people are scared to put themselves out there as like losing bettors, when the majority of people are losing bettors I, you know whatever. Am I as bullish? Yes, but like this is still very much phase one of the hammer, if we're being real here. I don't want to speak to like what else we have in store over coming years, but it was to get a content platform off the ground and establish like a core user base, which I think that we have done well so far. Um, we've obviously had very interested sportsbook partners, which helps as well, but, yeah, I'm certainly bullish on it. 

59:39
I never really wanted like Action Network's a great brand. At the end of the day, they sold for a ton of money. Like VSYN is a great brand, sold for a ton of money. There's a lot of content businesses that sell for a ton of money. I'd obviously like to be one of those one day. That's the end goal, but I never really wanted to be Action Network or VSYN. I wanted to build something differently, which was in my vision of content that I would consume, and if that's more niche, then so be it. I don't care. I think that there's still an audience for niche content, but I also think that two, three, four, five years from now, bettors are going to become more and more educated and the content that they consume is not going to continue to be the content that's being consumed now. So this is more of like a long-term game for me, but I am bullish on it. 

01:00:32 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yes, If you do like the content we provide here at Circles Off. We're going to ask one thing today, which is support number one, our sponsor, pinnacle. If you want to support us and you want to sign up for Pinnacle, as well as other sportsbooks, what you're going to do is click the first, the top link in the description this time it's betstampapp, slash, circlesoff and essentially what that is is our own landing page, our custom landing page that has all of our affiliate partners. You can sign up, get the same bonuses. You would get, in some cases, better bonuses than are offered on the site by using our exclusive links. As you know, when you sign up, we do receive a kickback. It's always a flat rate in return, so you know whether you're winning, losing doesn't matter. Sign up. Please support the show. We appreciate everyone who listens while we're at it. Subscriptions to the channel. We don't know what's up with that. Rob. 

01:01:28 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I alerted, alerted me to some quite alarming information this morning of everyone watching right now, half of you are not subscribed to this channel. 

01:01:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It doesn't make any sense. It's worse than this astrology bullshit. It really is. 

01:01:45 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I respect the numerology people more than the freeloaders who watch on a weekly basis and don't hit the subscribe button. Hit the subscribe button Furthermore, set notifications so that every single time a new piece of content goes live, you get notified when it goes live. It's as simple as that. We got circles off. We got 90 degrees. 

01:02:08
You'll also get notified about 90 degrees 90 degrees with Kevin Davis, who is one of the biggest stand-up guys in the entire planet, who had a great interview this week which I highly recommend checking out. I know the points bet traders out there not a big fan of Kevin Davis. He will remain. As part of Circles Off, he reaches a different audience and, frankly, I'll speak very openly about this if we want to talk about it, because I know that there's always complaints when people change up channels and podcast feeds and stuff like that. So why are 90 Degrees and Circles Off together? They're both, in a way, educational, but also like some sort of interview style content. 

01:02:49
But I'm a big believer in analytics obviously those people who know me. I want to grow YouTube channels and podcast feeds as well. Having the Circles Off episodes every Thursday it's good, but we need some secondary content in there as well. Having the circles off episodes every Thursday it's good, but we need some secondary content in there as well. I'm not interested in just producing trash secondary content For people that don't know, and I'll admit it because I don't care about ego or anything like that. 

01:03:13
Percentage watch time is very important for the YouTube algorithm For Kevin Davis and 90 Degrees everyone who starts one of his episodes on average is going to watch 40% of it. That is an extremely high number. It's higher than me and you do, johnny. So in keeping an engaged following and playing into the YouTube algorithm, 90 Degrees has a place Fits really well. We love Kevin. We will have him on the show eventually as a guest as well, and I would strongly encourage you to check out his stuff. Not every single better on his show is going to be a sharp better. That is intended that way. He's not passing people off as something that they are not. This is what we stand for. 

01:04:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Not everyone on our show is a sharp bettor either. 

01:04:02 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Exactly, I know you let that Knish guy come on. 

01:04:08 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I was trying to think of someone that I could throw under the bus there. I'm glad Zach went with Knish, but that's the reason why YouTube rewards constant viewership, good engagement, and Kevin Davis gets that with 90 Degrees because he's got a good show that I watch and listen to every single week as well and provide feedback on. So that's the reason it's going to stay, and the fact that some people don't like it honestly, the people that don't like it. It encourages me to keep it even more. I don't like it honestly the people that don't like it. It encourages me to keep it even more. 

01:04:44 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
I don't know why, but listen, give it a shot. But seriously, I've actually appeared on one episode, so at least go watch my episode. It was a good episode. Go watch my episode at least. And then you get to hear more of me preaching about random stuff. That you just check it out. 

01:05:01 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Who knows even what it was, but it's very, it's very, it's different. Like you know, there's variety. Right, I talk about listen. I'm gonna go on swipe up link in the description. 

01:05:10 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's it 90 anyways up. Next we have one cool question that was actually made. 

01:05:14 - Zack Phillips (Other)
Is it cool we laughed. 

01:05:16 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
We laughed pretty hard at this one. How do you handle a co-worker that stiffs you a couple K? Initially we had a couple riffs in the group chat. Yes, I currently owe Rob about a grand and I was like wait, is this Rob's burner calling me out? Zach owes a couple hundred bucks as well to some other coworkers and I'm pretty sure Rob is currently debated whether he owes another co-worker well, let's let luke's law. 

01:05:44 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
No, let's let's let's. 

01:05:46 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
No, let's leave it. 

01:05:47 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Let's leave it all this. 

01:05:47 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
But we we're like this is a great question, because you can't be stiff in co-workers a couple k. So we had to dm this guy and say, all right, listen, how do you handle a co-worker that stiffs you a couple of K? Well, obviously that's very dependent on the situation. Right Agreed, because, yeah, I will rob a grand right now from, just like office gambling. He hasn't asked to collect. If he asks to collect, I'm stiff. No, I'm kidding. 

01:06:14 - Zack Phillips (Other)
You owe me money on dice, I think. 

01:06:17 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's a sheet. We have a sheet somewhere. 

01:06:19 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Listen, lifetime office bets. I'll be honest, I'm about even, lifetime, I'm about even. I think lifetime we're all about even. But no, obviously we have. We have a sheet, uh, for just like quick bets, and we're not talking sports. We obviously check all our sports bets on bet stamp. This is a, you know, simple stuff rock paper, scissors, random bets that we might have made around the office. You know, when you bet on hey, is this guy gonna come back by this time or not? I'll take the over under 245. Are you guys actually betting that stuff? Now, I mean, listen, did we ever stop? So? Um, we asked about the situation and basically here's what we learned. 

01:06:58 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'll give it to rob yeah, I so like I need. I don't know the details of this, by the way, but it was definitely one of those where it's like we need to know more info about this situation. 

01:07:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So here's the keys to the situation. Both people are remote, meaning they're not in the same office. Okay, okay, key info One guy, who is the guy who is currently stiffing the other guy, was a sub-agent for a PPH and you know, for a year it was all going good, Everything was fine. Then he was notified that he was not going to be taking the action anymore. The account was cut off. It was still all good. He was owed a couple grand, three grand, and then the guy who was his co-worker just absolutely stopped responding to him. He's ghosted him now for a couple months. He doesn't, doesn't pay him, didn't pay him, didn't respond to him. It gets even worse. 

01:07:50
This guy contacted his super agent and said hey, what's going on? I understand that you don't want my action anymore, but like, can you pay what was owed? This guy said I actually paid your co-worker, boy, but my hands are clean. I paid your co-worker, clear it up with him. And uh, yeah, now this guy can't even get a hold of him. He's stuck 3k, turns out. He's been in a couple remote meetings with him face to face. Now does he say anything? What do you do? On top of that, one last piece of info he does have access to the sales numbers at the company and this guy who's stiff in the 3k, he's actually having a pretty good year sales wise, so he's not necessarily hurting for the cash. Those are all the facts of the story that we have. I'll leave it off to detective rob here. 

01:08:37 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
There's only one solution. It's one of these. What is it Got to? Send some threat? No, don't do that. 

01:08:46
Okay, so this is the remote part really puts a twist in it, right? Listen, for some people, $3,000 is a lot of money. I don't I don't know the situation, if this person thinks it's a lot of money or not, but it's now. It's a matter of principle, right, cause this guy's clearly dodging you, right? So I want to know, before I confront them, I want to make sure that they're not like live in like a lavish lifestyle, because the worst thing somebody can do when they're stiffing you is like rub it in your face. You know they come back with like steak lunch or something like that to the office. Then you're like you're fucking stewing. You're like this guy's not paying me and he's fucking going to Leafs game tonight and, you know, buying nice bottles of wine and shit, like then there's going to be a problem, and then it's. 

01:09:39
As you can be as vindictive as you want to be, either you just confront them straight on, you can go to HR of your company if you want to be a real piece of shit and be like listen, I want to alert you of a situation that's good. You approach it in a way where it's like it's got to alert you of this situation. This guy owes me some money, but that's going to get around and people are going to know that this guy is like a goof right. So you can really fuck him up that way, but you really need to know how he's living. If the guy's stuck like the guy could just be stuck a bunch and he just can't pay you either way, he should be like. He should at least respond. That's where it's like. I'm not, I'm a. You've known me for a long time. I don't like confrontation, but I'll get confrontational when I think somebody is like, explicitly like really trying to take advantage of your niceness, and that sounds like this other coworker is really trying to do that. So I have no sympathy in this type of situation. 

01:10:36
I think you got to call them out. You maybe don't have to do it in a meeting with other people or whatever, but maybe in the meeting you ask the guy to stay on the call for a second afterwards and you just hash it out. But he hasn't been responding to him. He's been messaging him. You have a meeting with this guy. He said he had a couple meetings with him. Right, you join everybody's chatting for the first couple minutes. Oh, how was the weekend? Boom, boom, adam at the end of the call, if you don't mind, stick around for a couple minutes, just want to chat with you about something Easy. That guy does not stick around for that two minutes. I'll go. Hey, I will nuclear to. Not even about the money, it's the principle. 

01:11:13 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
So what I would say is like, listen, you're in a business you don't want it for $3,000. And again, if it is a lot of money to you and you really need it, then maybe this changes everything. But for three grand I wouldn't go making a fuss and then, like you know, impact my job and put at risk, you know, the chance of me having a good image with the company, being able to move up all things like that. So I would definitely not bring it to hr or anything like that. 

01:11:34
The furthest I would go this guy really isn't responding is like messaging, messaging potentially his boss, and just saying, hey, I can't get ahold of this guy, he's not responding. Uh, have some business to discuss with them. Like, do you mind actually like connect, can you see what's up? Like I can't get ahold of him, he's not responding to me At least. Then that guy might think like, oh shit, he might be telling my boss it's like I better just talk to him and figure it out. But you also got to just like see also if he got the money from the super agent as well. 

01:12:06 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
But I don't know. There's too many hypotheticals here because, like, if you don't care about this job, like you're going to leave at some point, you don't care about the reference or whatever, then honestly email the guy and CC his boss and put him on notice. I'm not even joking. I know it sounds like way over the top, but it's the principle of the entire city. If the guy does not even have the courtesy to acknowledge that he owes you the money, you got to put him on blast. It's just the principle. I'm very curious about this one In the comments below here on YouTube how you would handle the situation, because this one can go many ways and, by the way, I'm a very sympathetic, nice person. I've had a lot people owe me money before. I've owed people money before when I was younger. You learn to work your way through that, but in cases where people owe you money, you at least have to respond to the person. You can't just disappear off planet earth. That's when I'm going to take a real issue. 

01:13:07 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, the point is like it's not even about the three cases. 

01:13:09 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Have respect for me as a human being and just say you know what, rob, I can't pay you this 3K. Honestly, I'll give you a couple hundred bucks a month till we got it square or like, come up with some sort of plan, that's frustrating. 

01:13:22 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
It's just frustrating. I think we had one more similar question come through the dms that zach just sent me here. Uh, what's up? Bet with two books who worked together for two years. Everybody always paid on time, everything going smooth. Bet the lakers 350 to win 11k. Um, so future bet I assume book kicks me off after the super bowl. Says he's getting out of the business. All 350 to win 11K. So future bet I assume Book kicks me off after the Super Bowl. Says he's getting out of the business. All future bets will be honored. 

01:13:49
Then blocks my number two days ago and the Lakers go up 3-1. They've since beat the Warriors and are now in the conference finals there. Says the bets are erased and he's not honoring them. Claims the reason is I made a threat Bracket. I never did. They are getting. They aren't getting away with this If the Lakers win, though, trust me on that. Just wondering how to handle in this situation. Love your content, thanks, guys. So first off, sorry about that situation, very difficult. The first thing I would say, as I've mentioned multiple times, never place a futures bet in a pph account. Never makes sense, pretty much ever. Don't do it, you're not going to win. If you do win such a high risk of getting stiffed because it's a larger amount chance, you lose the account in the middle. Basically exactly this situation. 

01:14:29 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
So you can blow up. So, just so people know, there's going to be like an agent who usually takes a small percentage of all the accounts that he gives out. If you win a futures bet's like this is 350 to win 11K, he's now gonna have to make up that amount, your agent, before he can actually make any money. And like they just don't wanna do that. So like I see this where he says like they aren't getting away with this. If the Lakers win though trust me on that, there's a very high likelihood that they're getting away. 

01:15:00 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Well, he says he's getting out of the business. That's probably not a larger agent. Like 11K, probably is a big hit to the book. Sucks, but like again, main thing I can say for advice for future never place a futures bet on PPH. On top of that, though, what I will say in this is, at this point, at least clear it up that the wagers are void. They're probably not paying you anyways. 

01:15:19
Last thing you want now is the Lakers to lose to Denver in this series, which is likely, and there's still like, keep in mind, they're still not likely to win the championship, correct, all right, despite the fact they've made it this far, undoubtedly, you have an incredible bet 350 to win 11K. They are still unlikely to win. What you don't want to happen now if you win that 11k, you're probably not getting paid. Well, you don't want to happen now. So, on top of that, a big slap in the face. They lose this round, and then they make you play the 350. So what I would say honestly at this point sunk cost, message him making sure the bets are void, calling it all. Bets are void, we're not paying anything out, see ya, and call a day. That's the best course of action now. It sucks, but unfortunately Completely agree. 

01:16:03 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
The chances you're going to get paid this 11K are as close to 0% as possible. If the Lakers win, you might as well get yourself out of a situation where they think that you're going to owe 350 bucks. 

01:16:15 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Completely agree, all right. Also, lakers are not going to win anyway, so don't even worry, it's not that big of a deal. 

01:16:20 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Okay, I think that's it. You've got to think probabilistically, man. Probabilistically, lakers are not going to win Probabilistically, but there's a chance. 

01:16:26 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
There's a chance Lakers win it. But see, that's the other thing. 

01:16:31 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
He's dealing with this issue before the issue has even come up it because he's had this bet since January. He said so he wants like. 

01:16:39 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
Yeah, he's probably chewing on the Lakers this whole time and the whole comeback. I know it's frustrating, but it is what it is. I appreciate the question. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, not too too much advice we have there for you. 

01:16:51 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
Yeah. 

01:16:52 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
That's pretty much all of the questions. I've left off a couple here, rob, but maybe we can get to him next time. All good, closing off here. 

01:17:02 - Rob Pizzola (Co-host)
I'm good 49.4% of you that are not subscribed to Circles Off right now subscribe. Smash the like button if you're doing the content that we put out. If you're in Ontario, check out our sponsor, pinnacle. Such a fair book, low, vig, highly highly recommend, not just because they sponsor. I've been pretty adamant. We've been doing this show long before a sponsor and I've been betting at Pinnacle for a long time. I would highly highly recommend them and that's going to be for us. Episode number 102, matt Ryan episode Going into the booth for CBS. Matt Ryan. 

01:17:38 - Johnny Capo (Co-host)
He is. We'll see you all next week, episode 103. See ya.